Rachel almost asks Mary to watch Sofia for the day. She has been asking, Won’t I even get to say goodbye to Sophia? and Rachel has made up ridiculous stories about why they haven’t played together. Now, after all this time of not calling, she cannot bring herself to finally do it to ask for a favor. She believes that Mary is sitting in her lovely cool home, expecting that Rachel will eventually call. But somehow that is even worse, the idea that she would call and Mary would gush, forgive, go back.
So she leaves Sofia with Peter and Yvonne, who acts troubled by the surprise midweek intrusion. Sofia will have to stay with us at the office, they say like a threat. We have appointments to keep. Rachel knows those appointments, the rabies shots and neutering and hairball removals. But Sofia likes that idea. She will help with the animals. She will make them better. Oddly, in these weeks before they leave for Paris, she has neglected her Madeline doll. She leaves it now, as she runs to her father, tossed in a corner like an orphan.
Rachel has decided to walk to the clinic; she is too nervous, pent-up is how she thinks of it, to ride in a car and circle around for a parking space. Liz will pick her up at two. She has opted for anesthesia and she will, they advised her, be groggy, too groggy to drive or walk alone.
The heat of the day makes her stomach flip-flop. And, walking, she is aware of her breasts, the fullness there. She is definitely pregnant. Why now? she wonders, when everything was finally going so right. But then she stops herself from that line of thinking. She has managed, hasn’t she? She has packed up her and Sofia’s lives, she has—long distance!—found them a new place to live. At night she listens to language tapes, carefully repeating the phrases. Comment ?a va? Je m’appelle Rachel. Ou est la gare du nord?
And she has managed this. This phone calls. The hushed voices. The appointment. On the phone the receptionist had warned her that Thursday was known with pro-life groups as baby killing day. Rachel supposed that was a test, a way of asking if she had the guts to actually go through with it, if she was certain she was doing the right thing.
Now, though, as she turns the corner onto the street where the clinic sits, she realizes that the receptionist has given her a real warning. In the wavery heat, the clinic practically shimmers. Rachel thinks of Oz, and then of those religious sightings people have—the madonna in clouds, in tortillas, in tree bark. She thinks of those because when shown on television, some camera desperately attempting to catch a glimpse of the image, there is always a crowd, shouting. Praying, Rachel supposed. Here, in front of the clinic, is a crowd too. A shouting crowd, carrying signs.
A knife of fear stabs Rachel in the gut. It is wrong, she thinks, that she should have to walk through them to go inside. She watches a teenage girl get swallowed up by them.
“Baby killer,” they shout.
“What about the Commandments?” someone calls. “Thou shall not kill.”
Rachel waits, but she never sees the girl emerge. It is as if they really have swallowed her up.
She is not sure what propels her forward, closer, until she is right upon them. A van parked nearby says CATHOLICS FOR BABIES RIGHTS on the side. Rachel too was a Catholic, was raised that way. She thinks of the cathedrals in Europe, the darkness of them, the heavy smell of incense, the way your footsteps echoed as you made your way forward.
“Baby killer!” they are shouting. At her, she realizes.
She is overwhelmed by the idea of her daughter, of Sofia. The softness of her skin and the brown sugary smell she carries with her. But even more than that. All the things that make her Sofia. The scramble of cells and genes. Everything.
Rachel makes her way almost through the crowd, almost to the door, when she is stopped by something so familiar she smiles and reaches out to it. But her arm hangs like that, reaching, without going any farther. It is Mary that she sees. In that crowd, wielding a sign that does not hide her bulging belly, which is wrapped in the softest color yellow maternity dress. Mary sees her too. Their eyes meet, lock. It seems to Rachel that the world around them melts completely away, and they are just two women standing on a street. But then the clinic door opens, releasing a medicinal smell in its burst of cold air-conditioned air, and two people emerge and gently take Rachel’s arms to escort her safely inside. Behind her, the shouting starts up again, and Rachel almost imagines that she hears Mary’s voice above all the others, calling out to her. But when the door closes, and she is in the silent waiting room, she cannot imagine what it might be that Mary would have to say to her. Or what she could ever say to Mary.
THE LANGUAGE OF SORROW